The StarNews was recognized as having one of the 15 best features sections in the country on Tuesday.

The honor was announced by the Society for Features Journalism (SFJ), formerly the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors. It’s the second consecutive year the StarNews has placed in the top 15. From 2005-2009, when the contest was organized differently, the paper placed in the top 10 three times and in the top 20 twice.

The annual contest judges newspapers of three circulation divisions on such criteria as writing, editing, layout and how they reflect their communities.

The StarNews features staff is helmed by John Staton and includes full-time staff writer Ben Steelman and part-timer Cece Nunn. Other regular contributors include food writers Liz Biro and Robby Nelms; gardening writer Susan Hart; A&E writers Brian Tucker, Justin Lacy, Bob Workmon and Roberta Penn; and the StarNews photography team. In addition, Tammy Miller oversees the layout assignments and wire (non-local) selections for features and gets a lot of help from the copy editing/layout team.

The StarNews competed in a category that included papers with circulations of 90,000 or less. Other 2011 winners in that category (rankings are not given) are the Greensboro News & Record, The State (Columbia, S.C.), the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star and The Anniston (Alabama) Star.

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